DHAKA: Sony revealed the latest prototype of its virtual reality headset on Tuesday, when it announced it will release the Playstation 4-compatible device to consumers in the first half of 2016.

The Project Morpheus prototype displayed at the Game Developer Conference (GDC) doesn’t look much different from the version revealed at the conference in 2014, but it now sports a 5.7-inch screen with a 1920 x RGB x 1080 pixel OLED display, 120 frames per second refresh rate and 100-degree field of view.

Latency is less than half that of the earlier model — less than 18 milliseconds, which Worldwide Studios president Shu Yoshida said surpasses the 20 milliseconds at which people can no longer tell virtual reality from the real world.

Playstation 4 was designed to output games at 120 frames per second, which the company believes to be ideal for virtual reality, Yoshida said, according to Ars. Games can be made at 60 frames per second and still render in virtual reality at 120 frames.

The headset tracks its surroundings in 360 degrees with 9 LEDs. The goggles can flip up to quickly jump out of virtual reality into the real world. There’s no word on a price just yet.

Project Morpheus is up against an increasing number of virtual reality headsets, including the famous Oculus Rift and newcomers announced just this week like HTC and Valve’s Vive and Nvidia’s Titan.

The Oculus developer kit 2’s screen is a lower 1080p and runs at 75 frames per second. The company’s more advanced Crescent Bay prototype doesn’t have publicly available specs, but Oculus previously planned on 1440p and 90 frames per second, according to Fast Company. Further specs on Vive and Titan should emerge at GDC this week.

Source: gigaom.com

BDST: 1402 HRS, MAR 04, 2015